


you’re my remedy

by amnesiayourself



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Fluff, a lil fast paced cus i dont wanna drag shit out, basically lots of metaphors and lots of learning stuff through animals, fic takes place in their late teens, they give each other pebbles like little penguins, this kara arrived at earth much later than in the show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:40:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26703862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amnesiayourself/pseuds/amnesiayourself
Summary: The woman taps her fingers against the front desk, clumsy quick. “I have to introduce myself, right? I am Kara, Kara Danvers from Midvale. Hi. Handshake or hug?”“Handshake,” Lena says, and then sticks her hand out. Kara takes it, carefully, softly, as if she’s afraid to hurt her.“See, I'm gentle,” she tells Lena. “I can hold the baby chicks. I won’t break them.”“Okay,” Lena sighs out, trying not to appear too dreamy. She slips her hand off, leading the way to the back of the shop. There’s something happening inside of her- something weird, fluttery, and she doesn’t like it one bit. It makes her hands tremble, and her legs feel weak. “These are them. You can choose any you’d like.”Kara kneels next to the enclosure, cooing, and Lena doesn’t scurry off to the front desk, no, she ambles, maybe skips a little- skipping burns more calories than walking or jogging or even running, that’s a scientific fact. That’s why- not because of any fluttering feelings or anything like that. Feelings don’t flutter. Unless Lena’s pregnant with a baby and it’s kicking at her belly. That would make sense. God, is Lena pregnant?-OR the pet store au!
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 116
Kudos: 863





	1. Chapter 1

Lena wouldn’t say her job was boring. She actually lucked out. There’s a plethora of pets, all with different, particular instructions that she has to carry out in order to be a good caregiver, and the intricacies delight her. It’s like a science experiment, in a way. But she can’t deny that this isn’t where she belongs. She’s supposed to be in school, looking through a microscope, pipetting sodium hydroxide into acid instead of this smelly food into a lovebird’s mouth. Maybe she shouldn’t have spoken up against Lillian. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe she should go back and apologize.

The phone rings. Lena wraps a towel around her arm before taking the lovebird with her, because he poops a lot and his nails scratch at her skin. Maybe Lena should clip them. Maybe she shouldn’t. Isn’t that what Lillian does, clips Lena’s nails even though she wants to keep them?

“Cat’s Pet House, how can I help you?” 

“Hey!” An excited voice nearly yells into the phone. “Do you have any of those yellow baby chick things? Because I was watching one of those commercials on TV and, man, those are cute!”

“Stop yelling into the phone,” Lena says.

“Oh, yeah, right, sorry. I don’t have to yell at them, I knew that.”

The words tug at Lena’s lips. She pats the lovebird on the head. She’s thinking of calling it Blue. “And yes,” she adds, “we do have chicks.”

“Cool! Can you bring one to my house?”

“No, you have to come to the store and get it.”

“Aw, alright.”

Lena gives the girl the address. “Also,” she adds, before the line closes, “you have to come with parental guidance, okay sweetie?”

“Okay, sweetie,” the girl parrots.

Lena laughs to herself. Maybe she’ll wait to apologize. Just until she helps the girl find a suitable pet.

-

She doesn’t have to wait long. It’s the next morning, and Lena’s luring the rabbits into their enclosure with a trail of baby carrots when she hears the bells atop the door jingle.

A woman saunters in, stopping at every enclosure to coo at the animals inside. She’s ridiculously attractive, and incredibly goofy looking, wearing a bright pink cardigan that’s buttoned up and leaves no room for the imagination- her biceps threaten to tear it apart. Her eyes squint shut behind her glasses each time she grins at a turtle, or a puppy, or a kitten, and all Lena can think when she finally stops at the front desk is _wow her cheeks must ache._

“Hello. I called my step mom Eliza, and she said I don't need her because I am above 18. Technically. Definitely. Where’s the baby chick?”

“ _You’re_ the girl from the phone?” Lena asks.

“Yes! And you’re the girl on the phone! Hi, sweetie,” she says, grinning.

Lena can’t fathom it. For a second she thinks of tearing her name tag off and walking away. How can this woman be so childlike? So _happy_?

The woman taps her fingers against the front desk, clumsy quick. “I have to introduce myself, right? I am Kara, Kara Danvers from Midvale. Hi. Handshake or hug?”

“Handshake,” Lena says, and then sticks her hand out. Kara takes it, carefully, softly, as if she’s afraid to hurt her. 

“See, I'm gentle,” she tells Lena. “I can hold the baby chicks. I won’t break them.”

“Okay,” Lena sighs out, trying not to appear too dreamy. She slips her hand off, leading the way to the back of the shop. There’s something happening inside of her- something weird, fluttery, and she doesn’t like it one bit. It makes her hands tremble, and her legs feel weak. “These are them. You can choose any you’d like.”

Kara kneels next to the enclosure, cooing, and Lena doesn’t _scurry_ off to the front desk, no, she ambles, maybe skips a little- skipping burns more calories than walking or jogging or even running, that’s a scientific fact. That’s why- not because of any fluttering feelings or anything like that. Feelings don’t flutter. Unless Lena’s pregnant with a baby and it’s kicking at her belly. That would make sense. God, is Lena pregnant?

The woman spends nearly half an hour playing with the chicks. Lena takes one of the land tortoises out of its tank and watches it try to use its neck to flip over and resists taking a peek- so what if she has huge muscles, and probably abs, and dresses cute? So what if she has long fingers attached to big hands that wave and hold gently and constantly move? Lena’s not meant for this. She’s meant to be in a lab, she’s meant to enjoy her work but otherwise be miserable, she’s meant to carry the Luthor name to higher greatness, because if she doesn’t then _what is she?_ just some girl working at a pet store watching a tortoise struggle to right itself.

“Look,” Kara shows her a chick and a duck, each held in an open palm, “I think they’re best friends.” She puts them down onto the table, and they huddle close, pecking each other on top of the head.

“I think you’re right,” Lena says. Typically they peck each other to determine who’s stronger and ahead in the food chain, but Lena doesn’t mention that

“I’ll take them both, so they can be together.” Kara nods to herself, poking a finger out and petting their heads with it. She looks up at Lena, eyes wide as if she’d just had a dangerous thought. It makes the blue of her eyes seem endless, like the vacuum of space, like they could suck Lena in, except unlike a vacuum they’re filled with all sorts of things. So maybe they’re not like the vacuum of space, maybe they’re just like a vacuum. A fascinating, extremely blue vacuum. “Can they fly, do you think? They have wings.”

“This is a domestic duck, so it can’t fly. The chick can, but only for like, 5 seconds and really low on the ground. It just flaps its wings and jumps, really.”

“Good,” Kara’s eyes return to their usual size, “‘Cus birds freak me out.” She side eyes the bird cages with a frown.

“Birds poop a lot,” Lena tells her, which, she’s not sure why. “They pee and poop from the same hole.”

“I didn’t know that,” Kara says, shivering. “That’s just weird.”

“Okay, so,” Lena shakes it off, grabs a manual from one of the drawers. “Birds and ducks are actually a lot different, though they can be raised together, so here’s some important tips you have to keep in mind.”

Kara takes it from her. “Like the dishwasher,” she says, which is just- inexplicable, to Lena, but seems to unlock some kind of code in Kara’s brain that she’s unaware of. 

Lena helps her pick a cage, and then, when Kara refuses, fills a shoebox with hay and puts them in there instead, her heart rattling in her chest at the panicky way Kara tosses the lid in the garbage. Lena stops her before she leaves, stammering through some thinly-veiled explanation as she shoves a paper with her number on it into Kara’s hands. “For any questions,” she says, “about the ducks. Chicks. Both.”

She goes back to the front desk, collapsing into her chair. The turtle is still on its back, neck craned. Lena props her head up, watching. “Need any help, buddy?” she asks, and uses her pinky to help it up. It walks away from her, slow.

Lena sighs. Maybe she’ll stay here a while. What if Kara makes some mistake, and the duck, or the chick, or whatever, dies? What then? Then Kara would be ruined, and she’d never get a pet again, and it would all be Lena’s fault.

Just one more week, or two. Just to make sure everything’s fine. If Kara doesn’t call her, then Lena will call Lillian. 

-

There were animals everywhere. A section for the dogs and cats, sad and soft, forming an alliance for extra cuddles and love. A section lined with gas tanks, some filled with water to house sea creatures like fish and frogs, and others filled with air to house snakes and spiders. There were animals everywhere, a dozen birdcages, rabbits, chicks, ducks. Like Noah’s Ark.

And one human. One human, standing at the desk, alone, waiting for the bells to jingle, for the phone to ring, alone. Where was her human? How was she meant to keep her species alive? 

The phone rings. It’s not the one on the desk- it’s the one in her pocket, buzzing against her thigh. Unknown ID. 

“Hello, sweetie?”

Lena laughs, unbridled joy leaking out of her just as she’s filled with it, making room for more. “Yes, it’s me.” 

“Can I take a duck and a chick to the theater?”

“I’m afraid not. Unless you’re willing to sneak them in.”

The image of it- Kara hiding a quacking duck and a squeaking chick in a backpack, smiling brightly at the tickets person, makes Lena grin so hard her cheeks ache.

Kara’s voice drops to a whisper. “Can you repeat what you said, without the last part?” 

“Uh, sure,” Lena’s eyes shift around the store, feeling self conscious even without anybody there, “I’m afraid not,” she says, again, stilted.

“Okay, I just wanted them to hear it from someone else.”

The line clicks off. The words _don’t go_ are on the tip of Lena’s tongue. She swallows them down. She closes the store early and walks to the pharmacy nearby. She feels foolish- sure, she had sex with Jack on Lillian’s desk as a farewell present to her dear mother, but she _knows_ she’s not pregnant. She still needs confirmation, a conclusive result. Science is not guess work. She takes the pregnancy tests back home to her unfurnished apartment and pees on the sticks. She puts down the toilet lid and waits, thinking.

What would happen if Lena used the same phone Kara called her on to call Lillian? The happy memory will be tainted, destroyed, and Lena will never be able to enjoy it again. Maybe Lena should wait until she can buy a new phone.

What would happen if Lena _didn’t_ call Lillian at all? Her dreams will be shattered, her passions dulled, but she will hold on to her morals, take a shot at another sort of happiness, one that doesn’t involve purposeful nails and barbed words and misery. 

Lena looks at the pregnancy tests. One line, all of them. She’s not pregnant. There’s no scientific explanation for the flutterings in her stomach, but there _is_ an explanation, and if Lena doesn’t call Lillian, she might see her again.

-

The phone rings three days, six coffee cups, four showers and two dream-packed sleeps later. 

“Hello, yes, I need some help,” Kara says. She sounds anxious. “Do you know how to get a chick out of the VCR?”

Lena stops fiddling with the cashier. “Your chick is stuck in the VCR?” 

“Do you need me to yell?” Kara asks. “I thought phones don’t need yelling.”

“No,” Lena chuckles, trying to focus, “no I don't need you to yell. It’s just- I don’t know how to help you through the phone. I’d have to be there, to see—”

“Come here! I need you,” Kara says.

“Oh.” Lena stares at the bells, quiet and non-jingly. “I guess i could do that.”

  
  


-

  
  


Kara lives on a quiet block in Hope Street, in the second floor of a clean apartment complex. She flings the door open before Lena can knock, as if she’d been standing with her ear against it, listening for footsteps.

“Hi, sweetie,” she says, without her usual grin. 

“You can call me Lena,” Lena tells her, trying not to blush. Kara’s wearing grey sweatpants and a white shirt that frames her broad shoulders, and she looks incredibly handsome with her hair tied up and her jaw clenched. 

“I’m a bad mom,” Kara says, whirling around to bound back in. “I shouldn’t have bought a chick.”

Lena follows her in. It’s colorful, greens and blues and browns. There’s a big window with a canvas propped up in front of it, an unfinished portrait of a lake with a duck and a chick bobbing in it. There’s a TV in front of a couch. Under it, the VCR. The chick squeeks relentlessly, half its body stuck. 

“Can you help him out?” Kara asks her, beseeching blue eyes and a begging bottom lip. Lena disconnects the VCR from the TV, crouching with it on the floor.

“He’s scared,” Kara says, almost to herself.

“We’ll get him out,” Lena tells her. She wiggles her finger into the slot, judging the space. “I think we have to tear the top off,” Lena says, “and then we can help him wiggle out through the inside.”

But there’s no screws on either side, nothing that will help them achieve that. Lena sits back, intent on finding another way. 

“In there, all alone, in the darkness,” Kara continues.

Before Lena can reassure her, Kara lurches, takes the VCR from each side, and then pulls back with a grating sound. Lena blinks at the VCR, now without its cover, and looks back at Kara, the broken metal in her hands.

“Get it out!” Kara demands, her eyes wide, the metal creaking underneath her fingers. Lena gently helps the chick’s head through until it breaks free. 

“Here,” Lena says, holding it up for Kara. Kara hesitates, fingers curling into herself as regards the chick with careful eyes. “You’re not a bad mom,” Lena tells her, holding it up like one might a ring, and when Kara takes it, it feels exactly like that. Like they’re bound forever. 

“I’m sorry,” Kara tells the chick. “I’ll close every hole in the place. You’ll never be alone again.”

Lena takes the ripped metal from the floor where Kara had left it. She runs her fingers over the jagged ends, presses them into the grooves Kara’s own fingers made. “Please don’t tell anyone,” Kara says, real fear seeping into her tone. “Please, I promise I am not bad. Please—“

“I won’t,” Lena says, vehement and desperate, before Kara can say another word. “You’re not a bad mom and you’re not a bad person. The chick loves you, see?” 

Kara looks down at the chick cuddling into her chest, and looks up with tearfilled eyes. 

“Thank you,” she says, wiping at her eyes to rid herself from the tears.

It feels so silly, the chick in the VCR, the weird woman claiming she’s a bad chick mom, but it also feels serious, Kara ripping metal, her otherwise gentle hands, her aversion to confined spaces, her tearfilled eyes. Lena kneels there, looking up at her, and, out of nowhere, _I love you_ plays in her mind like a chant. She doesn’t just think it, she _feels_ it, with her entire body, every atom and every bond splitting apart to make room for the truth and forming around it to keep it safe. _I love you_ , she feels, so truthful, so sharp and beating and urgent, that, in the moment, she can’t deny it, doesn’t want to. _I love you, I love you, I love you._

  
  


_-_

Lena can’t stop thinking about her. She feeds the puppies and thinks about her. She scratches the kitten’s chins and thinks about her tearing metal apart with her hands. She feeds Blue and thinks about her eyes, how they’d filled with tears, how it had torn Lena apart, how she would’ve done anything for her, in that moment. She stares at her phone and convinces herself it had rung multiple times only to realize it had been a phantom.

 _Do I really love her?_ she asks herself, and thinks _yes i do_ before the question can settle. She knows it, can’t refute it, doesn’t need charts or an experiment or a scale. She loves her, and if love at first or second or whatever sight doesn’t exist, then she _knows_ she’ll love her, and she doesn’t want to call Lillian, because if she does she loses her, and she can’t. She can’t. Her heart, the birds, the kittens and the pups, all the sounds come together in the rhythm of love, and all that’s missing is the phone’s ringing, and Kara’s voice joining in. And it’s so silly but Lena doesn’t want to run away from it. It’s what she wants. She wants to stay.

The bells jingle. Lena wipes her wet hands on a towel, tapping the fish tank in goodbye, and goes to the front, humming along.

“You,” a woman says, and she sounds angry.

Kara’s standing behind her. There’s tears streaming from her eyes, her buff shoulders shaking. Lena drops the towel. Her heart thrashes in refusal. “Are you okay?” she asks. “Did she hurt you?”

“Don’t talk to my sister,” the red head seethes. Lena looks back at her. She’s holding a gun, pointed at Lena’s head with steady hands. “Stay away from her, you fucking hear me? You tell anyone about this, and I kill you,” the safety clicks back, “and I’m not fucking bluffing.”

 _Why is Kara crying?_ Lena wants to demand. _Why is Kara crying? She’s soft and sweet and innocent, and she doesn’t deserve this. if you've made her cry I’ll kill you. I’ll jump across this counter and I don’t care how many times you shoot me._

Kara sniffles, an ugly sound ripping from her throat, a sound that doesn’t, shouldn’t, ever belong to her. Lena looks back at her, catching her pleading look, only to rip her eyes away when the redhead hisses _don’t look at my sister_. “Okay,” Lena says, and for a second she really believes her own self. “Okay,” she says again, staring back until Redhead hides the gun in her shirt and walks out, Kara following behind as if on autopilot. The bells jingle again as they leave. 

-

Her phone rings in the middle of the night. Lena’s awake, because she’d been worrying all night. There’s many scientific explanations to the way her heart physically hurts, but there’s nothing scientific about it. _Is Kara’s sister Lena’s Lillian? Is she being hurt?_

Her phone rings in the middle of the night. Kara’s crying, completely botched, ugly sounds ripping out of her. “I’m sorry,” she sniffles, wails, begs, “Alex is not a bad person, I promise, she is just scared.”

“Does she scare you?” Lena asks. “Does she hurt you?”

“No,” Kara hiccups, “I don’t want to talk about this. Do you forgive me? Please?”

“It’s not your fault,” Lena says, “and I would forgive you even if it was.”

Kara only cries harder at that. Lena stares at the darkness around her, silent tears trailing down her cheeks. Kara eventually quiets, soft snores and little hums through the speakers. Lena shoves her face in her pillow to muffle her own sobs.

-

  
  


The bells jingle the next week. It doesn’t sound like a song. It sounds like wood splintering, water washing in, like drowning animals, like the tears that had lined Kara’s eyes.

Lena looks up. _Uh,_ she thinks, numbly, the way she had been all week, _this makes sense._

“So this is where you’ve been hiding away all these months,” Lillian says, lip curling in disgust, her purse dangling from the crook of her elbow. “I assume you’re ready to apologize. I’ve saved you the trip.”

Lena stares at her.

“Hello?” Lillian says. “Have you gone mad?”

Lena stares.

Lillian crosses the room in two quick strides. She grabs Lena’s arm, her nails dull and yet digging in harsher than Blue’s ever could. “You’re not my daughter,” she hisses, her teeth clenched in anger. She’s terrifying. Even now, when Lena’s an adult, independent, whatever, she’s just _terrified_ of her. “I’m not obliged to follow you across the city as you ruin your own life. If you’re not back at the Manor by the start of the next semester, consider your last name _Smith.”_

Lena stares at her disappearing back. She stares at the red scratches on her arm. She stares and stares and stares through the whole day and then once she’s in bed she closes her eyes and stares at the back of her eyelids until she falls asleep.

\- 

Lena sinks to the floor, and the pups all bark and jump onto her chest, stomach, chest. She’s not sure how long it’s been since Kara last called her. Maybe she should’ve counted the tears in her heart, or the grooves in her skin, to keep track, but she didn’t. All she knows is that she’s been staring at the fan as it whirled and counted 1,131 full circles.

She’ll go back to Lillian. If she grovels well enough, Lillian will take her back, she’s sure of it. Maybe the only gift Lena can give Kara is taking herself out of the equation, driving Kara away where Lillian can’t find her, where Alex can keep and protect her, where the world is not flooded and skin isn’t bruised and innocence isn’t weakness.

Except, who would take care of the animals? Who would make sure Noah’s Ark still stood strong? What would happen to Blue? 

Lena hands in a two weeks notice. She hangs an _employees wanted_ sign. She counts 1,957 circles. She goes back to her apartment. If it could even be called hers, anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

The first candidate is a bearded young man with thin, hairy arms and an emo hairstyle that falls over his eyes. He plays with the kittens too roughly and doesn’t help the tortoise Lena left on the desk to test him. It’s wrong, everything’s _wrong._ Lena tears the application from his hands and hisses at him to _get out._ The door hits the bells when he opens it, a noisy clatter. Lena misses when they used to sing. She misses when the birds’ chirping wasn’t insistent, when the droning of the water filters was proof of life, when the dogs’ barks was a cry of joy. Now everything is just noise.

Two days before Lena has to leave, she meets the perfect applicant. She shoots every question Lena throws at her down. She handles each animal with care, reads all the manuals, even recommends some. Lena gives her the job. She packs her bags and goes in for her last day. She stares at the store’s phone and thanks it, thanks the bells, the chicks and ducks. She lets the snake wrap around her arm and thinks it might as well be squeezing her from the inside out.

The bells jingle. Lena doesn’t look up. “Fine,” an angry voice hisses. “Fine, you can talk to her. If you do anything, _anything,_ you know what happens.”

Lena looks up. “I quit,” she tells Alex. “I’m moving away. You don’t have to worry.”

“Tell that to her,” Alex says. Kara’s standing behind her. “You hurt her,” she repeats, glaring, hand drawing back her jacket so Lena can take a peek at the gun tucked inside, and walks out.

“You’re moving away?” Kara asks her. She’s in a big jacket that drowns her out, as if she’s hiding from the world. She shouldn’t be hiding. Everyone who sees her would fall in love, would start to hear songs in ordinary sounds, smell roses in public toilets, taste sugar in black coffee. “Alex said to wait. She said if you keep your mouth shut we can be friends. She’s scary sometimes, but she’s not a bad person, I promise.”

“I’m not moving away,” Lena says, before she can even think about it. “I lied to her. I was scared.”

“Oh, okay.” When Kara moves her jacket makes crumpling sounds like she’s hiding something inside. “We can sneak the chick and duck into The Ugly Duckling. Don’t worry, I made Alex watch it first, and it’s a sad story that ends happily, like my story, so the duck won’t be sad.”

Lena locks up. She follows Kara to the theater and makes a lot of noise so the ticket person in the stupid red vest and hat won’t hear the duck quack from Kara’s jacket. They settle in to watch the movie and all Lena can think is _I want to hear your story instead._

Lena walks Kara back home. “I’m glad you're not going away,” Kara tells her around a twizzler. 

“Do you want to come by the store later?” Lena asks her. “You can tell the story to all the ducks. They’ll be inspired. Like an anti-bullying campaign, or something.”

“Duck gets jealous,” Kara tells her. That’s what she had named her pets. Chick and Duck. It makes Lena fill up with happiness. “But I can come play with the puppies?”

Lena smiles. Something inside her eases. “Yes, please,” she tells Kara. “They would love you.”

-

Lena unpacks her bags. She sends the now unemployed employee an apology letter. She gives Blue an apple cider bath because apparently he has bird lice and that’s why his feathers are so patchy. She thinks of deleting Lillian’s contact number. She stares and stares and stares at it.

Kara comes by in the afternoon. “I’m sorry I’m late,” she says, still wearing that huge, rumpy jacket, as if she’s trying to make herself seem smaller, “my chick and duck got in a fight. It was ugly.”

Lena powers her phone off. “I thought they were best friends?”

“Even best friends fight sometimes,” Kara shrugs.

“That’s true. Puppies?”

“Puppies,” Kara repeats. Lena unlatches the pen and they all clamber at her feet, the odd golden retriever sniffing at Kara’s feet, and then more following when Kara drops to the floor and hugs around its neck. She lays down on her back and giggles as the puppies lick at her face and stand on her chest.

“I wish I could have all of them,” Kara says, before she leaves.

“You can, if you come every day,” Lena says, hoping she’s not being too transparent. 

-

Kara invites Lena over for ‘game night.’ She says she’s seen it on a show, or a movie, or something, and wants to do it too. Lena agrees to go without thinking. Of course she does. It’s Kara.

She wishes she had the ability, the strength, to say no to her. She wishes she thought of it- her, Kara, Alex and her girlfriend, trapped in a little room together, no space behind the couch to duck if Alex throws the plate she’d been eyeing with a murderous gleam at her head.

Alex takes every opportunity to mouth _I'm watching you_ over Kara’s shoulder, but her girlfriend is nicer, although just as protective. They start with charades, but Kara doesn’t really know any of the movies or plays she picks, so then they play Monopoly, but Alex flips the board not even ten minutes in, and after a round or too they conclude that Maggie is too short for twister. 

Kara suggests they play hide and seek. Maggie whispers something into Alex’s ear. Alex glares at Lena for about fifty eight seconds straight, unblinking, and then takes Maggie’s hand and leaves. Lena takes it as a stamp of approval.

“We can play with the chick and duck,” Lena suggests, when it’s just them, and Kara’s eyes light up. 

“I taped all the holes,” she says, “they can’t get in the VCR!” They sit on the couch, cover their eyes, and Kara counts out loud. 

When they open their eyes, the chick and duck haven’t moved an inch, cuddled into each other in the middle of the carpet. Lena snorts, and then dissolves into giggles at the hilarity of her situation. Kara looks at her, confused at first, but she never needs prompting for laughter.

-

Lena has to stay home. She’s nauseous, weak, and can’t stop going to the bathroom every hour. Her phone rings while she’s curled up in bed, and usually she wouldn’t answer, but it’s Kara.

“Did you move away?” Kara asks. “Did you move away and not tell me?”

“No,” Lena croaks.

“You sound bad,” Kara says. 

“I’m sick,” Lena tells her. “Took a day off. Sorry. Should’ve told.”

“I will take the bus,” Kara tells her. The line clicks off before Lena could argue.

She’s not sure she would’ve.

-

Kara lets herself in. She finds Lena in bed. Lena can’t gather the energy to pretend to be okay. It’s period cramps and diarrhea and it’s embarrassing.

“I brought Chick and Duck.” Kara puts them down on the bed. The chick cuddles into her palm, warm. “Your stomach hurts?” Kara asks, pointing at the warm bottle on Lena’s abdomen.

“Yeah.” Lena says.

“I want to help,” Kara declares. “Food?”

Lena shudders. “No.”

Kara thinks. “Puppies?”

More animals in her bed. “No.” Lena blushes, hiding her face in the pillow. “Can you get me something from the pharmacy?”

“Yes!” Kara stops wringing her fingers, steps closer. “Anything.”

Lena reaches a shaky hand into the drawer, holds the paper slip up to Kara. 

“Be nice to Lena,” Kara tells the Chick and Duck, bending close to Lena to pat them over the head, titillatingly close, painfully close, achingly close. “She’s a sweetie,” Kara adds, grinning up at Lena and making her blush harder.

-

Kara comes back an hour later, even though the nearest pharmacy is barely six minutes away. “I got the medicine,” she tells Lena, tearing the packet away and handing Lena the pills. She opens the manual. “Do you have chronic or acute diarrhea?” she asks, blinking down at Lena seriously.

Lena groans. “Stop reading that,” she tells Kara, “I know how many to take.” She pops two capsules into her mouth, laying back down and already feeling better.

“This is where you live?” Kara asks, looking around the sparse apartment. 

“Haven’t had a chance to get furniture yet,” Lena says. She’s had plenty of chances. She was just never sure if it would be permanent. “You can sit on the bed, if you want to stay,” she says.

Kara bounds over, climbing over Lena and onto the other side of the bed. Lena didn’t think this through. She never thinks things through around Kara. The bed is a single, and Kara’s body is a _radiator,_ her warmth seeping through her pants and heating Lena’s bare legs.

Her arm wraps around Lena to pet at the Chick and Duck, her breath falling over Lena’s cheek as she coos nonsense. “You need anything else?” Kara asks, and Lena jolts.

“The bottle’s cold,” Lena admits, “but you’ve already sat down.”

“Oh,” Kara says, “I know.” She takes the bottle away, fingers ghosting over Lena’s waist. “Can I touch you?”

Lena’s eyes widen. Though she has no idea what Kara means, she nods, because yes, yes Kara can touch her. Kara slips her hand under her shirt, palm spreading around her tummy in a gentle, warm hold.

Lena’s bloated. She’s pretty sure her stomach is the size of a mountain. None of that matters. She closes her eyes, nudging back against Kara’s front so she’s sandwiched in her warmth, the cosiest, snuggest, best human shaped pillow she could ever dare have. “Thank you,” she whispers, and blames the rush of emotion on hormones. Her heart beats so hard she’s half-worried Kara will feel it thumping on her back, or through her stomach, but she doesn’t pull away. 

-

The pills kick in within the hour. Lena makes them tea and wonders how warmer Kara would feel after drinking it, after her hands cup the mug, after her mouth sips the liquid, after her tongue licks the droplets that had trickled down onto her fingers.

The cramps ease enough that she can go to work the next morning, though they, as usual, persist for two more days before Lena can finally stop snapping at people. It helps that Kara puts her palm over Lena’s tummy every day she visits the store and asks her _how she’s feeling_ with her incredibly handsome face and incredibly gentle hand.

“Did you know that goldfish have a memory that only lasts 5 months?” Lena asks, while she’s dusting off the tanks. 

“You like animals,” Kara says. “Yes?”

“You didn’t answer my question. And yes. Although this isn’t what I imagined doing with my life.”

“What, then? Did you imagine?”

Lena cleans the filter, feeds the turtles. “It doesn’t matter.”

She wants to take it back immediately . She doesn’t like that she’s not sharing it with Kara, that it’s some kind of wall between them, but if she talks it’ll just spill out of her and she’ll never be able to take it back. So she just rubs at her skin, clear of grooves and scratches, and holds it in her chest, for her alone.

-

Kara acts odd the following week. Like, when she interrupts Lena’s conversation with a client to announce that the corn snake they were discussing was a _blessing in disguise,_ winking clumsy at Lena, or when she demands Duck to _respect Lena_ after he splashes her while they were giving him a bath, gazing at Lena as if in apology, almost adoringly. It’s probably a trick of the lighting, or dreams infiltrating waking moments. Lena doesn’t for a second believe it’s true. 

It still makes her blood thrum.

“Did you know that sharks die if they don’t swim?” Kara asks, looking at her much too earnestly, during a game night.

“I didn’t,” Lena says, if only to keep that look on her face. She’d been telling her random animal facts all week. “That’s interesting.”

Kara grins. “I know a lot about animals,” she tells Lena. 

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes. Like elephants are really hairy. Even on their trunks. It must be itchy to ride them.”

“Yeah,” Lena chuckles. “It must be.”

Maggie joins her by the alcohol once Kara starts mentioning hide and seek. “ _Stop beating around the bush,_ ” she tells the Chick loudly, hands on her hips, looking back to grin at Lena. Lena laughs, bemused.

“She’s trying to court you,” Maggie whispers.

“Court me?” Lena asks.

“It’s what they do where she’s from.”

“Where she’s from,” Lena repeats.

“Alex sent me to tell you all this. She doesn’t want you to know she approves. You must really like Kara, if you’re willing to deal with her.”

“ _You_ must really love Alex,” Lena says, dumbstruck, looking towards the kitchen, where Alex is slitting her throat with her own thumb, glaring. 

Maggie makes a face. “Or she’s just really good in bed.”

Lena barks, slapping her hand over her mouth. Alex squints at them, suspicious.

-

The DELETE button flashes on Lena’s phone. Lillian’s phone number disappears from her contacts. Lena throws the embroidered lab coat in her closet into the trash, and then throws the garbage out, and then watches the truck drive away with it. She buys a couch. If she gets a smaller one, so her and Kara would have to sit closer together, it’s not intentional, not intentional at all.

-

Lena tries to ask Kara out. She really does. But every time she opens her mouth, looks into Kara’s wide blue eyes, an ocean untainted by her, she can’t bring herself to do it.

Alex magically appears as she’s locking up the store. “Are you leading my sister on?”

“What?” Lena gasps, nearly dropping her keys. “No!”

“Then why the hell haven’t you done anything yet?”

“I’m just—” Lena sighs. Alex waits, glaring. “I’m not sure I deserve her.”

“Nobody deserves my sister,” Alex says with the surety of one proclaiming a fact. Lena agrees. “Ask her out on a date. Kara didn’t go to three different pharmacies asking for diarrhea medicine to be treated like this.”

“She _told_ you about that?”

Alex rolls her eyes. “Kara’s undocumented,” she says. “You can’t go around sending her to pharmacies. She needed me.”

Lena’s heart sinks. “I didn’t know,” she says, hating that she put Kara in danger, “I just assumed, with the Alien Amnesty Act—“

“The act’s bullshit,” Alex snaps, fire in her eyes, like when she loses at Monopoly, like whenever she defends Kara. “This president might defend their rights, but there’s no telling what the next one will do with the list. It sure as hell doesn’t stop people harassing aliens on a daily basis. I’m not putting Kara through that. It’s easier to just pretend.”

It’s a scary thought, but it also makes Lena feel kinda warm, that Alex trusts her with this. It must show on her face, because Alex falls back into her usual passive aggressive stance, frowning. “You tell anyone and see what happens,” she warns half-heartedly, _I’m watching you_ signal before walking off.

Lena laughs.

-

“Did you know penguins mate for life?” Kara asks her. They’re in the store, trying to find a scorpion that Lena stupidly dropped to distract Kara after another failed attempt to ask her out.

“The male searches for the finest pebble in the beach,” Lena tells her, “and if the female accepts it, they’re mated for life.”

“What if it’s two females?”

Lena’s head snaps up. They stare at each other, on their hands and knees. “Then I guess they’d both find each other pebbles,” Lena says softly. 

Before Lena leaves, she finds a pebble on the front counter. She goes home and plans everything. She rents a car, makes a mixtape. The next day, while Lena’s feeding Blue and Kara is side eyeing him from the other side of the store, she just blurts it out. “Do you want to go on a date?”

Kara perks up. “Like mates?” 

“If that means girlfriends, yes,” then, “If not, then also yes,” then, “I want to be whatever you want.”

Kara stares at her. “Excuse me,” she says, and scurries to the restroom. Lena hears furious whispering, probably a phone call, _girlfriends are mates right?_ Then Kara comes back out with wide eyes.

“Yes,” she says primly, and then grins, rises to her tiptoes, “I’d love to.”

-

Lena hasn’t felt this much anxiety in months. She thinks of how numb she used to feel and can’t fathom it- not with Kara in her life, not with being able to have her in this way.

She spends ages at the florist. She can’t choose- so she ends up with a bouquet of nine different flowers, different colors and different families, and it makes sense. It’s so Kara.

Kara has flowers for her too. It’s a bouquet of origami roses, and just knowing that she sat down and folded all those papers with so much care- Lena swoons. 

She blinks when Kara wears her rumpy, oversized jacket, hiding the strength of her shoulders, curling her fingers into the cuffs, but doesn’t say anything. Instead, she tucks Chick and Duck in the pockets, standing close and intimate, Kara looking down at her with so much handsomeness it’s unfair.

“Come on,” Lena says, and takes her hand, looking up at her to make sure it’s okay. Kara grins at her, and they stagger out of the apartment and into the car.

“You’re going to love this,” Lena promises. She pops in the mixtape, titled _Kara - First Date_ , and Kara wiggles in her seat, singing along to N’SYNC, her hair blowing with the wind. 

Kara vibrates with excitement while they’re in line waiting for their tickets. She pulls Lena through the gates, nearly knocking people over as they climb into the bus. They drive through the enclosure, lions and tigers running along with a dangerous gleam in their eyes, and they meet a monkey that can do tricks, though Kara can barely focus, she’s so busy giggling at his exposed butt. Lena takes a picture of Kara with an otter over her shoulders, her eyes squinted shut with the force of her grin. They buy chicken nuggets from the little cafeteria and then they walk one of the dogs offered by the zoo- a husky that Lena’s half afraid Kara won’t be able to let go off -and take Chick and Duck to meet their _cousins._

Their last stop is at a glass enclosure. The sun is starting to set, beautiful colors that encompass exactly how Lena feels. Like the flowers had, the oranges and blues and the rayless sun fit Kara perfectly. 

“Endangered,” Kara whispers, reading the paper taped to the glass. The panda stares at them, lonesome. “The last of his kind,” Kara says, “in there all alone.”

Kara touches her hand to the glass. Lena touches her hand to Kara’s. “I am endangered too,” Kara tells her. “The last of my kind. All alone.”

It’s a new piece, another part of Kara’s story, but it pains Lena so much that she’s not sure she wants to finish it.

“I wish he wasn’t so alone,” Kara says. “I wish he at least had a mate, or a sister. They don’t have to be like him, they can be anything.”

Lena rests her head on Kara’s shoulder, hands wrapped around her arm, heart doing tricks and turns in her chest. “Me too,” she whispers. She tucks her hand into her pocket, searching, and nudges her hand into Kara’s. “Here,” she says softly.

Kara looks down at her hand. “It’s a pebble,” she says, looking up at Lena. 

“It is.” Lena exhales and her whole body shudders. “Do you like it?”

“I love it,” Kara says immediately, looking at her like she’s the whole world, “thank you.”

Lena finds the fine silver around her neck, holding up the necklace. “This is the pebble you gave me,” she tells Kara. She broke a little piece, used sandpaper and water to smooth it and tucked it into a transparent locket, displayed at the center of her neck. “I was going to ask you what you wanted me to do for yours,” Lena tells her. “A necklace,” she touches Kara’s neck, “a ring,” she touches Kara’s finger, “anything.”

“Can you make me a bracelet?” Kara steps in, close, very close. “Out of gold.”

“Gold?” Lena blinks. She wraps her fingers around Kara’s wrist, squeezing. “Yes. Of course. Anything.”

Kara kisses her. She just does it. She stares, touches her cheek, and presses their lips together, so soft, lingering for a moment, two, three, four, and then pulling back. Lena’s eyes flutter, her lips tingle. Kara’s already looking back at the panda. 

It’s perfect. It’s so perfect Lena doesn’t know what to do with herself. She’s irreparably tainted- she can’t go back. She doesn’t want to. If she could stay in here forever, in this zoo, with Kara, she would. And she can- she will. This is their Noah’s Ark and they never have to leave, because if they do, they’ll never be able to get back on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’m falling behind in nearly all my courses so i decided it’s the perfect time to procrastinate and write supercorp giving each other pebbles 🥺
> 
> shout out to that one person that thought kara would ask for a job at the store. might circle back to that later ;)
> 
> (also, did i write angst just to resolve it one paragraph later? uh, no! it’s TWO lmao)


	3. Chapter 3

Kara asks for kisses at the most inopportune of times.

“Kiss,” she demands, walking into the store with her lips pursed. Lena blushes, glancing at the client she’s helping, but she can’t deny her, so she presses a kiss to her lips and Kara wanders off to play with the ducks. 

“Kiss,” Kara orders in the middle of one of their game nights, leaning across the board game with her lips pursed, and when Lena obliges Alex glares at her for the rest of the night and Maggie keeps cooing at the two of them, Kara grinning proudly. 

“Kiss,” she orders one morning, after she’d spent the night spooning Lena, and kisses Lena against the fridge- firmer, deeper, her tongue slipping out, touching at her lip and then retreating. Lena clutches her shoulders and tries not to whimper.

Lena’s mouth becomes kiss swollen and her neck blooms with hickeys more often than not. Kara seems to be experimenting, learning what she likes and what Lena does after each makeout session. Lena asks- and Kara’s only ever kissed one person before, not more than a peck when she was a kid. Lena thinks about that every time Kara kisses the life out of her, her hands holding onto Lena’s hips and moving her as if she belongs to her, and it makes her head spin.

Lena pauses to take a breather, nuzzling into Kara’s neck. She’s in Kara’s lap, uncomfortably wet, and when Kara’s fingers slipped under her shirt and started trailing feather light across her lower back and tummy with no intention of going further up or down- she had to stop, seconds away from grinding down against Kara’s thigh. 

“I’m hungry,” Kara says, voice husky and just- Lena holds back her groan by the edge of her teeth.

They pick up some nuggets from the McDonald's nearby, and then take a walk in the park, stopping to feed the ducks in the lake. 

“If we were ducks would you share your bread with me?” 

Lena hides her face in Kara’s jacket, away from the cold breeze. “I’d fight off all the other ducks, so you can have maximum bread crumbs.”

“Cool,” Kara says, letting Lena wrap her arms around her waist under the jacket and snuggle into her. “I think I’d want to share, though.”

“Of course you would,” Lena mumbles.

-

Blue lays an egg. After 24 days of meticulous care, it hatches, and Baby Blue comes into the world- Baby, for short. Lena takes him home with her, much to Kara’s chagrin, but he needs constant care.

“I don’t like how patchy his feathers are,” Kara says, frowning. 

“He’s growing,” Lena tells her, endlessly amused by Kara’s odd dislike for birds. “Give him some time.”

“I don’t like the smell of his food,” Kara says one morning, frowning at Baby over her pancakes. “It’s ruining breakfast.”

“He has to eat,” Lena says, smiling to herself. It’s as if Kara’s hoping that if she complains enough Lena would get rid of him. 

Kara lets it slide when Baby starts hanging out with Chick and Duck, walking behind them on the ground as if he’s one of them, but when she finds Lena giggling as Blue nips at her ear, it seems to be the last straw.

“I can nibble your ear too,” she tells Lena, and makes a spectacular job of it, leaving Lena flushed.

Lena thinks that Baby Blue is much like Kara, in that he loves cuddles, sleeping on Lena’s chest, and digging into her food, but Lena doesn’t realize just how much they’re alike until he learns how to fly, clumsy and with poor aim, and takes to following Kara around the apartment and trying to perch on her head. Kara runs away, arms flailing, batting him away.

“Why do you hate birds so much?” Lena asks her.

Kara quiets, going pensive. Lena waits her out, preparing snacks for their midnight drive. The sky has begun getting lighter by the time they reach the hiking trail that Lena doesn't plan to hike. 

“Promise you won’t tell Alex?” Kara asks her.

“I promise,” Lena says, easily, but not without a hint of anxiety. Alex had been successful in instilling the fear of god into her, though Lena’s willing to face her off, especially for Kara.

Kara takes off her rumpy jacket, helping Lena up from the rock they’d been sitting on. She wraps her arms around her, pressing her close, and Lena doesn’t realize what’s happening for a moment- she’s too busy soaking in their closeness, the feel of Kara’s body against hers. Then her feet lose purchase of the ground, and she gasps, looking up at Kara, who has her eyes closed and her face scrunched in concentration. “You can float,” Lena gapes.

They land back on the ground, fast and clumsy, the rush of wind stealing Lena’s breath. “Don’t tell Alex,” Kara says again.

“She doesn’t know?”

Kara shakes her head.

“But why?” Lena asks, cupping her jaw.

“She doesn’t like that I'm different,” Kara says, her bottom lip jutting out in that way it does, always with her heart on her sleeve.

“That’s not true,” Lena says. “Alex loves you. She just worries about you. That you’ll get hurt.”

“I’m strong,” Kara says stubbornly.

“You are,” Lena agrees. “Can you fly, do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Kara says. “It’s hard.”

“We can come here every day to practice,” Lena tells her, “if you want. You’re my favorite bird.”

Lena presses a kiss to the corner of Kara’s lips, and it twists into a smile.

-

Kara lets Baby fly onto her shoulder, though begrudgingly, and only for a little while. He takes to walking more than flying, following behind them on the ground, and sometimes sitting on Kara’s foot while she walks, though Kara puts a stop to it after he poops on her toes. 

Lena walks into the kitchen one day to a sleepy Baby cuddling into Kara’s hand. “I don’t like how thin his eyelids are,” Kara says, “It’s like he doesn’t even want to protect himself.”

Lena has no answer for that. She can feel his eyes flickering against her skin whenever he nuzzles into her palm whilst asleep, and she worries about that, too, though she’s sure nothing would happen. “But he has us to protect him,” Lena says, hand on Kara’s shoulder. Kara nods, and Lena can tell she knows what Lena really means.

-

It becomes routine. Lena opens the store every day at 9 AM sharp, Kara strolling in in the early afternoon. She no longer asks for a kiss, instead taking them whenever she wants, though sometimes she still does ask in front of people, as if to prove a point. They take the puppies out for a walk during her break, and then drive to the hiking trail at night, where Kara will float over Lena’s head and levitate and even fly a couple of feet in the air. It reminds Lena of Baby Blue.

They go back to Lena’s apartment, make out. Kara takes Lena’s shirt off, her bra, too, nipping at her ear, soft touches at her breasts, kisses that give rise to nips and suckles. She lets Lena take off her shirt too, feel her up over her bra, touch the taut muscles that flex and strain under her fingers.

“Please,” Lena begs, after a week of the same treatment, Kara driving her mad and then dozing off while nuzzling her chest, clueless to the desperate mess between Lena’s legs. “Kara, please,” she says, tilting her hips, trying to find something, anything, to press against her, maybe even her own hand, if she could just fit it under Kara, her heavy, strong, soft, Kara, and Lena’s always thought of her as innocent but now she’s doing all these  _ things  _ to Lena—

Kara draws Lena’s nipple into her mouth, tongue swirling, and then pulls back. “What?” she asks, her hands spread around Lena’s ribs, her waist, encompassing the whole of her.

“Nothing,” Lena pants, pushing the back of her head until Kara goes back to work, and falls asleep the same way she has for months, wet and aching, and so, so happy.

-

December comes along. Lena grabs the mail and is blissfully unaware as she prepares breakfast, sharing a mug of tea with Kara, loaded with sugar that Lena pretends to dislike but secretly enjoys. “What’s this?” Kara asks, holding out a letter. Lena abandons the stove for a moment to look over her shoulder.

Lena’s heart sinks in her chest. She snatches the letter from Kara’s fingers, tossing it in a cupboard. “Nothing.”

She can  _ feel  _ Kara’s frown. A part of her, a giant part, wants to turn around and apologize. A smaller part holds firm.

“Girlfriends are like mates,” Kara says, “and mates don’t lie to each other.”

“I’m not lying,” Lena sighs. “I’m not lying because it’s not something, it’s nothing, because I don’t care for it.”

“Then why did you keep it?” Kara asks stubbornly. “Why didn’t you throw it away?”

Lena yanks the drawer open, rattling the spoons and forks inside. She takes out the letter and tosses it away. “There, it’s nothing.”

Kara doesn’t come over to the store that day. Lena stares and stares at the fan. She holds Blue without the towel, waiting for nails to cling to her skin, but Blue only nibbles her finger before flying off. 

She thinks about the last time she saw Lillian. She thinks about the coat she threw out. She thinks about the microscope she used to own.

She thinks about Kara, ripping that VCR with her bare hands, flying atop the trail, her rumpy jacket and Alex’s gun. She thinks about how much she loves her.

When she gets home and reaches in a drawer for a spoon she finds the letter safe inside.

-

Kara opens the door with a squint. “Lena?”

Lena pushes past her. “It’s an invitation for a gala from my adopted mother,” she says quickly. “I don’t want to go because we’re not on good terms.”

“Okay.” Kara squints at Lena through bleary eyes. “Thank you for telling me.”

Lena walks up to her, tucking her hands under her chest and her face into the crook of her neck. Kara holds her and Lena sniffles, her fingers crumpling the letter in her hands.

-

Kara wants to go. Lena can tell, mostly because the letter keeps showing up in weird places- stuck to the fridge, in between the pages of the book Lena’s reading, on Lena’s face as she’s sleeping.

In Alex’s hand, during game night. “What, you’re ashamed of my sister?” she demands. “She’s the best damn thing that’s ever happened to you.”

Lena sighs. “I’m not ashamed of Kara,” she says. “I’m ashamed of my mother.”

Alex softens, the littlest bit, and Lena doesn’t elaborate- if Lena tells the truth, then Alex will never want her around Kara again. She’ll lose everything she found. It’ll be a splinter that will sink the entire boat.

“If your mother invited you, she probably wants to patch things up,” Alex says. “Kara lost her mother. It’s why she wants you to go.”

Alex walks off without another word- Lena’s not sure if she hates or loves her, in that moment, for doing this to her. Kara replaces her in an instant. “She made me tell,” she says earnestly. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Lena summons the next words from the pits of hell. “We can go, if you want.”

-

The days seem to fly by. Lena dreads waking up, knowing each day brings her closer to seeing her mother again. She takes the tortoise out of its tank, bigger now, though it still needs help to flip over. 

“You have to stop doing that.”

“Huh?” Lena looks up.

“It won’t learn by itself,” Kara says, a golden retriever held in her hands. They’re mirror images of each other. “If it knows you’re there to do it for him.”

Huh. 

-

Kara refuses to wear the rumpy jacket to the gala. The  _ one time  _ Lena actually wants her to hide. “It’s a  _ gala _ ,” she says, frowning. She’d just finished googling it. “Fancy pants. Fancy shirt. Tiny fancy food.”

“Yeah,” Lena says, holding up the jacket, pleading, “but the jacket,” she says, trying to force Kara’s arms in, “the  _ jacket _ .”

Kara doesn’t fight her- she never would. She stares at her- rumpy, oversized jacket over her beige pinstripe shirt and blue vest. “And I got you this,” Lena adds.

“Glasses?” Kara asks. Lena puts them on her- there. Dorky, unassuming. Her broad shoulders hidden, her jawline softened, the blue of her eyes dulled.

“Okay, now we’re ready,” Lena says, taking Kara’s arm in her nervous hands and leading her out the apartment.

-

It takes forty minutes to drive to the venue. The drive is silent, no music, and Kara stops trying to make conversation after several failed attempts. Lena sits ramrod straight, as if she’s already started playing the part of Lillian’s protege, her hands clenched around the steering wheel, her throat parched and her stomach swimming with nerves.

“And don’t say stuff like the bees wax okay?” Lena continues.

“I thought you liked when I said that.”

“I do,” Lena says. She pulls up in front of the venue. “Just, please. And people talk through the phone, not from inside it, remember?”

“I remember,” Kara mumbles.

“And don’t give anyone your social security number or anything like that.”

“I know how to be human,” Kara says, and it comes out like her chest is heavy despite her best efforts to disguise it. Lena doesn’t notice.

They leave the car, meeting in the front. Lena tugs at her jacket, her hand gentle. “You look handsome,” she says as if in apology, looking up at Kara with soft eyes.

“Thank you,” Kara says, and Lena leans in to peck her cheek, thumb hovering over the faint mark her lips leave behind indecisively, before changing her mind and leaving it there. She takes Kara’s hand and leads her inside.

Nobody comes up to talk to them, but Lena can feel the entire venue stop to stare as she walks in. They’re probably whispering of her abrupt departure, of the argument in Lillian’s office that could be heard all the way from the basement of LuthorCorp, the deafening slap that had echoed through the walls like war drums.

Kara is immediately enraptured with the hors d’oeuvres, sampling each one multiple times, grinning at Lena with chipmunk cheeks. Lena manages a smile, her eyes scouting for a tall, amorable blonde, for the crashing wave of water waiting to knock her over.

Instead, she finds Jack. He catches her eyes and smiles, his glass lifting in the air to point at her. The twinge of guilt over how Lena had treated him returns. She’s not sure how well it would go, to talk to him with her new girlfriend tagging along, but she still tugs at Kara’s sleeve.

“But I’m eating,” Kara pouts at her, biting into a cucumber sandwich and reaching for a shrimp cocktail. “What is this?”

“Shrimp cocktail,” Lena says. Kara makes a delighted sound as she sips it. “No, you dip the shrimps in,” Lena hurries to tell her.

“Yummy,” Kara says, already reaching for another platter. “What about these?”

“Stuffed jalapenos,” Lena says. She’s become well versed in pretentious foods over the years. “Listen, I have to go talk to someone. Do not speak with anyone, okay, Kara? Especially not my mom.”

“Okay, sweetie,” Kara says, planting an appeasing shrimp kiss to her lips.

“I’m serious,” Lena insists, holding eye contact until Kara nods seriously.

Jack looks as dashing as ever; even more so, perhaps, freshly groomed beard and in a tailored suit for the gala. 

He holds nothing to Kara.

“Lena,” he greets her, still with that tease in his voice, even after how they left things off. “I didn’t think you were coming.”

“I wasn’t planning to,” Lena admits. “Mother wouldn’t let me miss it.”

Jack nods. “Who’s that with you?” he asks, jutting his chin in Kara’s direction. Lena turns sideways to catch a glimpse of her following a platter of egg rolls.

“That’s… Kara. She’s my girlfriend.”

Jack’s smile doesn’t falter for a moment. “I’m not gonna lie and say that’s not disappointing,” he says, stepping closer. “I do miss you, Lena. It’s just not the same without you.”

Lena steps back, crossing her arms over her chest in a nil effort to keep herself together. “It’s not like I wanted to leave,” she says, trying to sound firm. “I had to.”

“You could’ve made it easier on me,” Jack says. His smile doesn’t turn bitter, the softness in his eyes doesn’t falter. He’s just being honest.

“I’m sorry,” Lena says. She’s been wanting to apologize for months. If nothing good comes out of coming here, at least there’s this. “That was a dick move on my part,” she admits frankly. Jack’s lips twitch. “I was just… angry, and you were there, and,” Lena shrugs, stopping that train of thought before she can hurt him further. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

Jack nods, looking down at his drink. “That’s all I needed to hear,” he says. It’s the first time during their whole conversation that he sounds sad.

They’re interrupted before Lena can find something to say to dull the hurt. “Why don’t you go chat with the shareholders,” Lillian says, and Lena’s not sure how she missed the warning sounds of the crashing waves, or the lighthouse’s flashing colors, but she did. Jack nods, smiling at Lena, and disappears into the crowd.

“Is she documented?” Lillian asks, no preamble, no greeting.

Lena answers before her heart’s caught up with her mind. “She’s Midvale born and raised, she doesn’t need to be documented.” 

Lillian smirks. Just as quick as her entrance, just as quick as her accusation, she brandishes a small device that glows red.

Lena feels all the blood rush down her veins to splatter on the floor. _Shame on me,_ she thinks. _Shame. On. Me._

“Lionel couldn’t let one good deed go unnoticed,” Lillian continues, tucking the device back into her pocket. “The whole world knows you’re mine. You’re going to be settled back into your program by the end of the week. No more ridiculous pets and ridiculous notions of rebellion. I believe we have an understanding.”

Lillian slinks off, snabbing a champagne glass and fixing a butler’s bowtie on the way. Lena’s boat sinks.


	4. Chapter 4

Lena packs her stuff. She’s lost track of how many times she’s done it already just to unpack again, but this time it’s for real.

She was lying to herself, this whole time. She deleted Lillian’s phone number but she always had it memorized. She threw away a lab coat that could be replaced but kept her goggles and uni pass. She found Kara and she bought a couch and she fell in love and it was all for nothing. Nothing but a world of hurt for someone who didn’t deserve it. The last person in this world who deserves it. 

Lena never deserved her. Never.

Alex visits while Lena’s crying. she sits among Lena’s boxes and Lena can’t even look up or defend herself. She deserves whatever's coming her way. She clutches her sloshy head with a hand and her pebbled necklace with the other and she cries and cries and cries.

Alex puts a hand on her shoulder and Lena jolts away. “Don’t. I hurt her.”

“And I hate you for that,” Alex says. Lena wants her to whip her gun out and tell Lena to never come near her little sister again. She wants Alex to  _ hurt  _ her, in any way she can. What she does is worse. “But I understand,” she says.

Lena grits her teeth, a hiccup forcing its way through. “She took a chance with you,” Alex says. “She opened herself up. She won’t learn to take care of herself if I keep doing it for her.”

“You have to take care of her,” Lena insists, croaky when it should be an order. 

“Take care of yourself, alright?”

Alex doesn’t touch her again before she leaves, but she does leave her phone number behind. Lena doesn’t want it.

She doesn’t even consider throwing it away.

-

Lena goes back to MIT. She takes all her clothes, her pebble, and Baby Blue with her. She continues her internship at Luthor-Corp right where she left off. She hears whispers of the alien detection device, but nothing concrete. Jack isn’t as happy to see her as he would’ve been before. The days pass.

This was all she craved, before. The hunger for it had been dulled, after she met Kara, but it was still there, lying comatose under the surface, ready to be awakened. To study cells under the microscope, to create medicine, to heal. To have her days so full of work and learning and solving problems that she didn’t have time to worry about anything else.

But, like before, she doesn’t want it if it means standing quiet while the xenophobic agenda is running rampant; standing quiet while ridiculous amounts of money are charged for simple medicines; standing quiet while protocol is tossed aside as if it was an accessory and not a necessarity.

There’s also a second layer to it, now.

Lena’s new apartment is eerily quiet. Structurally it’s no different than the one before, except that it’s a lot more spacious. But it’s quieter, and there’s no duct tape over the outlets or the vcr, no bird constantly tweeting, no Kara. 

Lena misses her ship.

-

“Can you move your legs?” Jack groans, helping her stagger through the walls of her stupid empty apartment to her stupid empty bed.

_ Just keep walking,  _ a sober Lena orders somewhere in the back of her mind. “I don’t wanna,” drunk Lena whines, making a point to drag her feet against the floor.

“Jesus,” Jack mutters. He props her against the wall, searching for her keys in her pockets. Lena doesn’t help. “Did you and your girlfriend break up? Is that what this is about?”

“Kara,” Lena whines.  _ Shut up  _ sober Lena orders. Lena listens this time.

Jack helps her into bed, tossing her shoes off, turning the air conditioner on. He hesitates before leaving.

“Why’d you come back if you’re so miserable?” 

“Kara,” Lena whispers again. “Lillian.”

Jack switches off the lights. “You’re useless. Thank god it’s friday.”

-

The pounding in Lena’s head the next morning is compounded by the knocking on her door. She hides her necklace under her shirt and she hides her phone with Alex and Kara’s numbers under the mattress, then trudges over to the front door with her coffee mug filled to the brim. 

She forgets to hide Blue.

“You’ve been drinking,” Lillian says.

“It’s the weekend.”

“Luthors don’t handle their alcohol well,” Lillian sneers, stepping inside to look over her apartment. Look for what, Lena’s not sure. 

“As you always remind me, I’m not a real Luthor.”

The look Lillian sends her is cryptic, intentional, and Lena knows she’s stepped over the line. “Take that thing away,” Lillian says, gesturing towards Blue with a tilted chin. “This isn’t the zoo you’ve grown so fond of.”

“Mother,” Lena pleads, thinking it one of those times that Lillian just wants to hear her beg, just wants her to split herself apart to feel better about herself. But Lillian only glares, barbed words falling from her lips, and Lena’s run out of metaphors, because there aren’t any crashing waves, or a thundering storm, or a leak through wood. There is no boat.

-

She calls Alex. 

She calls Alex and Alex comes.

“Please don’t tell her you came,” Lena says, white knuckled grip around the cage, Blue tweeting disconcertingly.

“She cries every day. She broke down during a game night and we haven’t had one for weeks.”

“Don’t tell me that,” Lena begs, close to tears herself.

Alex struggles to wrestle the cage out of Lena’s grip. “I’m going to tell her you called,” she says. “I’m going to tell her you said to hold on to this until you come back.”

“Don’t give her hope,” Lena says.

Alex stops trying to take the cage from her, hand instead slipping Lena’s sleeve up, lightning quick. “This is not okay,” she fizzles, gesturing towards the faint pink marks dragging down her skin, the nail-shaped grooves.

Lena lets the cage go. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she snaps. “You don’t know, it’s this or--”

“What?” Alex demands. “What, Lena?”

Lena quiets, clenching her jaw. “Don’t give her hope,” she says again. “It’s pointless.”

“Then give me the necklace.”

“What?”

“Give me the necklace,” Alex repeats. “That’s your penguin shit, right? Give it back, so she knows it’s over.”

Lena blinks, recoiling back into the apartment, as if wary that Alex would lunge and rip it off her.

“That’s what I thought,” Alex says, giving her one last, long look before leaving.

-

It feels like Lena’s heart hasn’t stopped thrumming since Alex left. She thought she could do this, but she forgot how tiring it was, juggling lectures and quizzes with her internship, with Lillian’s insistence to make her miserable and sleepless nights and hard work. Add the weight of missing Kara, and it’s almost too much to bear.

She skips her midterm exam and hides under the covers in the dark instead. It’s like she’s already made a decision, her body just needs time to catch up, to wallow in it and gather the courage. 

Jack sends her an all caps text demanding she meets him at work, and then manic keyboard smashes until she finally agrees. She forces herself to change into a pencil skirt and a blazer, already regretting playing hooky- regretting Lillian finding out.

“What do you want?” Lena asks dourly.

Jack’s eyes are wide and his forehead perspires a nervous sweat. “Your mom’s assistant is out sick,” he explains quickly, covering the receiver with his palm. “Lillian’s in a meeting right now, come listen.”

Lena rounds the desk, too tired to argue. Jack presses the phone against her ear, and his own ear against the phone. Lillian’s voice trickles out.

“Why are you making me listen to this?” Lena breathes out. 

Jack jolts the phone away, shoving the handset back into its place. He hurries her back out near a corner near the elevators.

“It’s why you're so messed up, right?” he whispers. “‘cus your girlfriend’s an alien?”

“How’d you know that?” Lena breaks out of her halftrance, considers taking Jack’s collar and twisting it in her fist, growling in his face—

“You told me, when you were drunk. I said I'd help.”

“Oh.” 

Lena leans against the wall, pressing two fingers against her pounding temple. 

“You don’t have to do anything about it. She’s your mother, I get it. I can do it…”

Jack’s voice fades into the background, and Lena’s hand slips down to touch at her forearm, the grooves that have found their way back into her skin.

Lena’s seen life without Kara, and with her, and— Alex was right. She doesn’t deserve this

-

Lena takes her phone out from underneath the mattress and opens up her contact list. Her thumb hovers over Kara’s name, and then taps down, to Alex’s.

“Are you okay?” Alex asks.

“I’m fine. I have a question.”

“Okay.”

“This Alien Amnesty Act, it makes it illegal for... people to expose aliens’ identity, right?”

“Why are you asking?” 

“I would never hurt Kara,” Lena says in response to the wary way Alex poses the question. “I thought you knew me enough to believe that.”

“Not intentionally. Tell me what it’s for and I'll tell you.

Lena fiddles with the ID around her neck. She recognizes the hesitation holding her captive, the same kind that held her from leaving Metropolis for so long, the same kind that Kara eradicated with a single outing to the movie theater.

“Look, I’m not stupid,” Alex says. “I know what this is about. Either you protect your mom, or you protect Kara.”

Lena’s sick of hesitating. “Can you meet with me?” she asks.

-

Lena leaves her organic chemistry lecture in a hurry, speeding down the highway. 

Her and Alex decided to meet at a coffee shop an hour away from campus, along with a plethora of other precautions. As Lena listens to Alex repeat them for her over the phone, she thinks she’s probably the first person that has ever matched Alex’s paranoia.

They also agreed Alex would sit far back, away from the window. That’s why when Lena finally sees that Alex had brought Kara with her, she’s already walked deep into the coffee shop and met Alex’s eyes.

She still turns right back around. She scurries back to her car, feeling much like the first time she ever saw Kara in the shop. A hand lands on her shoulder just as she’s grasping at the handle of the door. Lena holds her breath, heart thumping against her chest.

“Don’t be stupid,” Alex says. Air rushes out of Lena’s lungs. “Come back in.”

“Are you deranged?” Lena shrills, whipping around with wide, nervous eyes. “I told you not to bring her!”

“I didn’t bring her,” Alex says, sounding resigned. “She insisted on coming.”

Lena looks behind Alex and to where she can just barely see Kara’s golden locks shining in the sunlight.

She remembers the day she left. How Kara had softened her shoulders to appear small. Lena saying  _ I never want to see you again.  _ How Kara’s bottom lip trembled. Hurt. Aching.

“Look, I’ve made stupid decisions too,” Alex says. “The last being pulling a gun on you, and she forgave me.” 

“That’s different.”

“It’s really not. We’ve both made decisions on her behalf. It’s time to stop, yeah?”

Lena thought she’d someday get used to these sudden pangs of just  _ missing  _ Kara, but this one hits harder than most. Kara had confided in her, in how it felt to have Alex treat her like that. How it made her feel like she had to hide. And Lena doesn’t ever want to be someone that makes Kara feel like that. 

She also doesn’t want Lillian to hurt her.

Lena takes a deep, steadying breath, and nods. She follows Alex back to the table, slides in next to her in the booth.

The first word she says to Kara in nearly three weeks is, “Hi.” 

She says them to the table, really, fingers knotting together, and Kara doesn’t reply. Alex rolls her eyes and takes over.

“Why’d you want to meet?” 

Lena reaches for her bag with shaky hands. Maybe she passes out for a second, but for a moment every sound in the cafe suddenly stops. No one is talking, no one’s spoon clinks against the side of their mug, the furniture doesn’t screech and the cars don’t honk and the coffee makers fall quiet. 

It’s just Lena, meeting Kara’s blue eyes. That feeling is back, the fluttering in her stomach, the weak limbs. 

And then the sounds rush back.

Lena takes the box out of her purse and opens it.

Kara speaks up for the first time, frowning at the device in her hands. “That’s the thing your mom had.”

“It is. I stole it from the lab.”

Kara reaches for it, and Lena’s heart jumps up to her throat, or falls to her feet, whichever works. “Don’t,” she croaks out.

“What is it?” Alex asks.

“Alien detection device. She’s planning to distribute it, under the table of course.” 

Kara makes a curious sound with her lips.

“Secretly,” Lena amends, chancing a glance at her. 

“That’s fucking disgusting,” Alex declares vehemently.

“I know,” Lena says. “You can bust her, right?”

“This is a serious offence,” Alex tells her. As if Lena didn’t know already. As if it hadn’t been the cause of her suffering for months and months. “She could go to jail.”

Lena steels her jaw. She tucks the device back into its box and takes a file out instead.

“I’m willing to go on the record. Here’s everything I know.”

Alex takes the file from her hands and steps out of the cafe, fingers already furiously dialling on her phone.

“I knew what under the table meant,” Kara tells her.

“I’m sorry,” Lena whispers. Her heart dances like it’s at a festival.

“Everybody’s always trying to protect me,” Kara says, peering directly at her face. “I’m not a child. I can take care of myself.”

“I know.” Kara doesn’t seem as inclined to avoid confrontation as she usually is, and Lena stops to swallow thickly under her reproving stare. “I should’ve told you what was going on. I shouldn’t have even gone to my mother’s stupid gala. I just thought…”

“She’s your mom,” Kara finishes for her. Her hands slide closer. “You weren’t ready to let go of her. It’s okay if you still aren’t.” 

Lena really shouldn’t be surprised by how well Kara gets her. She slides her own hands closer until the ends of her fingers smooth over Kara’s wrist, and when Kara opens up to the touch, she breaches the distance completely.

“Did you know that spiders have little fingers coming out their butt?” Kara asks.

Lena’s heavy set brows unfurl as she laughs. “Did you know that i’m sorry?” she asks. “And I missed you every day, and that I'll never do anything like it again?”

“Yes,” Kara says haughtily, lifting her chin in the air. “I’m very perceptive.”

Lena laughs again. She’s seen life without Kara, how bleek and numb and shitty it is. With her, life is already gaining back color, and she’s already getting used to laughing.

Alex comes back, interrupting them. Lena still expects her to be disgruntled, angry even, but there’s a softness to her eyes when she talks.

“I need to take you to the precinct. Nothing serious, just to make everything official.”

“I’m coming with you,” Kara says.

Alex cuts her eyes towards Kara, denial ready on her lips. Kara only frowns at her, the equivalent of a golden retriever denied his snacks, and Alex relents. “You know, i’m really not liking this new independent Kara.”

“Lena likes it,” Kara says, and yeah, Lena does. She likes, loves, all versions of Kara.

Alex leaves ahead of them to cool the car while they order some pastries to go. “Wait,” Kara says before they leave, stopping her with a gentle hand on her wrist. “Kiss?”

Lena glances down at Kara’s soft, pink, pillowy lips. She thinks if she hadn’t known Kara was an alien, she would’ve known just from kissing her- those lips are heavenly. “You really forgive me?” she asks.

Kara’s hand trails up her arm and to her shoulder, the edge of her pinky touching the cold metal of her necklace. Lena shudders into the kiss, her own hand warming around the gold around Kara’s wrist, until a loud honk pulls them apart. Lena shuffles into the back of the car, flushing all the way down to her chest. Kara glances at her in the rearview mirror, pleased.

**EPILOGUE**

It’s not easy. Lena doesn’t feel guilty, not exactly- her mother deserves every sentence given to her -but it still sits heavy on her heart some days. 

Today’s definitely not one of those days. Kara is practically thrumming with excitement beside her, and Lena joins their hands and squeezes in a nil effort to keep Kara’s excitement at bay.

Kara always gets like this when they go to the zoo, but Lena has something special planned. She kneels with a golden bracelet held up in offering, a smooth pebble framed in the middle, and lets Kara pull her up for a crushing hug.

“There’s more,” Lena says into her shoulder.

Kara pulls back, her eyes wide and excited. “There’s more?”

“Remember this panda?” Lena asks. It’s where Kara had asked her for the bracelet.  _ Endangered _ , the glass wall says. “I’m going to buy this zoo, and we’re going to knock this wall out, all of these walls, and he’ll never be alone again.”

Kara takes her hand and presses it to her chest, where it’s beating so hard it’s like thunder against her palm. “You mean it?”

“I mean it. It won’t be tomorrow, or even next year, but i’ll do it. We can even bring some friends over for him, from all over the world.”

Kara crushes her in another hug, squealing into her ear, and Lena laughs loudly into hers in retaliation. There are no rumpy jackets, no overly protective sisters, no grooves in her skin.

“He won’t be endangered anymore,” Kara whispers, “Like me.”

Lena couldn’t be happier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this is so half assed im burnt out of words for this fic BUT here’s some headcannons:
> 
> Lena, Kara, all their animals + a golden retriever Kara adopted while Lena was away, move in together. 
> 
> Kara has been taking care of Cat’s Pet Store since Lena left and she makes her way higher up and manages to somehow become best friends with Cat herself, who Lena never even interacted with outside of like 4 emails so she has no idea how that happened. 
> 
> Lena sells L-Corp and studies zoology at NYC instead. 
> 
> Alex goes with them to the hiking trail to watch Kara practice and eventually master flying.
> 
> Kara insists she knows Santa isn’t real but she proceeds to leave out a cookie- just the one, because she can’t stop herself from eating the rest -and a glass of milk out by the fire every christmas eve.
> 
> They have an official wedding ceremony and for their honeymoon they backpack across Europe, where Kara finally moves them past second base after slurping spaghetti like an animal. (she slurps something else like an animal too)
> 
> LOL THANKS FOR READING and share your headcannons if you have any! would love to hear them.

**Author's Note:**

> if you caught on to what show this fic was initially inspired by, let me know! you can find me on my [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/amnesia-yourself) here, if you’d like.
> 
> (tag yourself, i’m Lena falling in love after 3 conversations.)


End file.
